@MermaidSuzy888 thank you. Honestly. Thank you

@MermaidSuzy888 I appreciate the solitude that comes with being alone in the woods, it's very special, the same applies to scuba diving without a buddy, something that you are taught never to do but sometimes that's what it takes to feel truly live. Break a few rules, they're only guidelines after all.
So for my Scouts I taught them the rules until I felt they were safe enough to be told the truth - that we all have to take responsibility for our own lives regardless of what the rules say we have to do.

@MermaidSuzy888 I love the ocean too, I wanted to be an oceanographer and gobbled up everything I could read about Jacques Cousteau as a child but I couldn't swim. Friends tried to teach me to swim and it resulted in my drowning but I managed to survive and was resuscitated. I learned to dive and got my PADI back in 2010, one of the scariest things I have ever done but I felt better for it and love being underwater and enjoyed underwater treasurehunting as a hobby. Shoot for you dreams, you have nothing to lose.

@MermaidSuzy888 You are probably in more danger driving down the street to get groceries than you are while hiking. You might get hurt or die, but at least you're living life on your terms.

@MermaidSuzy888 no you don’t know what I know and there way more hood people out there BUT it only takes one psychopath. Be safe

I agree wise precaution

@Bairsdad You are entitled to take offence. You should take offense. Offence that this is the world women live in & YOU know NOTHING about. I know all men are not.......But I hate them until they prove their innocence. You sir are not at risk as we are. We are hunted. Constantly! Everywhere!

@Bairsdad Take offense all you want but if you are a woman, your safest option is to assume, up front, that ALL men are not to be trusted. If one can indeed be trusted then she will be OK.

@Bairsdad yes, we need all caution ourselves on lumping everyone into the same category...nothing is all or nothing, anyway!

@Bairsdad What a condescending, judge-mental screed. How you talk about what women have done to you, I would think that you are one who can not be trusted around women.

@Bairsdad Oh my. Touched a nerve. Tsk tsk. Thou protesteth too muchly. My prejudging kept me from what you experienced....rape. My prejudgement has kept me safe & prepared & experienced to defend myself. I am sorry that you were unable to do the same. Because I was able to ascertain danger I was able to strike first & thus survive unscathed, save for my even more extreme caution.

@Freedompath Easy for you to say. You are not harassed, pursued, attacked, everytime you venture out into society. You don't have to think several times before you take the stairwell, or the isolated underground parking, or the hiking path in the woods, or the office alone after hours, or the parking lot at night, or the parking lot in the daytime, or the woman's washroom at the gas station, or the rest stop on the highway, or the van parked next to you,or your own home.....without your dogs which I am never without.

@Countrywoman not every time, but I am paying attention! I rarely drop my guard, I have had more than my share of men tormentors and other women (and some men) tell me their stories...but, I still can’t lump men together as bad guys! Just this very day, a person came to visit and went into the time she was raped, years ago!

@Bairsdad of course not but sadly a sufficient number

@MermaidSuzy888 I do not live in fear. I live in isolation so that I don't have to live in fear. Fear is a survival mechanism. I rejoice that you have had no problem. I wish I could say the same. I worked & invested & saved my whole life so that I could have what I have.

@MermaidSuzy888 No offence taken. It can be peaceful. But then camping there one night a neighbor drove up in the dark to "meet " me. The blinding light is what the Golden State Killer used. The neighbor had liquor on his breath. My dogs were at the ready. Fortunately it began to rain . He meant no harm but the fight or flight or freeze response affected me for weeks. Still does. Hyper vigilant. Men just don't think about their actions & how it affects women & CHILDREN.

@Bairsdad Yep. That's me! =0} And it is your job not to let me get away with it. Good for you. A real champion of "not getting away with it" types. Life hurts everyone, dooooood. Spinster? YAY SPINSTERS. And with that I respond to you no longer. Please block me.

@Bairsdad WE? Pahleeeeze!

@Bairsdad I love posts like this....it shows me who to block on here. Oh, never mind. You will never see this...because, duh.

@SkotlandSkye Hey Where'd he go? =0}

@Countrywoman general I agree with you that many men are potentially dangerous or that there can be some very horrible behaviors or unimaginal thoughts..... but your observation seem anger driven and painting with the widest brush. I don’t know what you’ve experienced but I’m sorry if it’s been difficult

@Millerski25 Thank you for your kind words. You are correct. I am an angry woman. I use the widest brush possible. Both have served me well. Life is difficult. Not a complaint, just a fact. Ask the Mayans coming from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras. I would not complain ever. But I would survive. Your profession lends you to empathy & compassion. That is a good thing in this world. After all we have a role model that thinks he can grab a woman by her pussy & if he is famous he can get away with it. Well with some women he can't.

@Countrywoman you would do well in France

You ain’t lying... I was threatened by 2 men with gun... I was respectful but direct and honest and they went their way

You said it sister. It is always worse when they are trying to impress their buddies by terrifying a woman.

@MermaidSuzy888 I'll take the bears.

@MermaidSuzy888
Thank you for your kind words. At age 21, I moved from Michigan to Washington State to climb mountains, and stayed. Out west, I have been appalled by the persistent, redneck, "f-ck the man" culture. Trump voters. It's like a lingering disease.

Yahoos are proud of breaking laws, littering, shooting up road signs, and destroying fragile watersheds by illegally "mudding." While hiking, I pick up litter. For years, my friends and I have been cleaning up gullies used as illegal dumps.

With the influx of Seattleites, rural Wenatchee now has tens of thousands of voting Democrats. Hooray!

Speaking of rednecks, this is what scares me:

"Five gunshots." My report:

[wta.org]

My brother sent me the book "A Walk in the Woods". The opening chapters talk about hiking the Appalachian Trail alone and what can happen. Pretty scary!

@JackPedigo
I love the hilarious book, "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson. Each winter, I enjoy reading it and fall off the couch laughing.

@LiterateHiker Hopefully, your kikes are a little better thought out than his!

@MermaidSuzy888
Thank you! Translated, "F-ck the man" means "F-ck the police, laws and regulations. They don't apply to me."

Here are a few of my favorite places to hike:

1. Lake Colchuck, 6,000', with Dragontail Peak, 9,000', behind me. August, 2010

2. Beautiful Spider Meadows, 2014

3. Columbine on Pacific Crest Trail, late June 2015. This was during a four-year drought. That's why the mountains didn't have snow.

@LiterateHiker those Trumpettes are bottom feeders, impulsive, thoughtless , no moral compass... and if you’re not WASP and ignorant you are completely excluded which is so fine with me as a Jew. But their treatment of women will send that move back 100 years as they are

jlynn37,
Thank you. My women's hiking group has boiled down to three strong hikers: Gro, Karen and me. In the winter, we keep going on snowshoes and micro-spikes.

@LiterateHiker your a better woman then me Gunga Din

@MermaidSuzy888 It's sort of like becoming my own avatar when I use the "gallopers"..when I'm using them, I am like a loping wolf. I never tire, or slip, and I can carry heavy backpacks without effort.

I move so much like a deer, though, that once a pack of wild Thai dingo dogs in Saraburi, here in Thailand, started hunting me. I had to keep standing straight and holding the gallopers away from me to convince them that I was human.

@MermaidSuzy888 It is. I learned years ago to never lend my gallopers to anyone, even for a few minutes, because people then refuse to return them and sometimes become very angry.

One thing the gallopers does is very strange; when people use them even for a few seconds, they wake up in the morning with hard, flat abs, their waists shrink, and they become limber. I can lay my hands flat on the floor and hold them there..no effort, and I'm 65.
When I first moved to Thailand and hadn't made another pair of gallopers yet, my abs and waist went to ruin, despite my desperate exercise efforts, within two weeks. Another strange thing..using the gallopers puts peope into a kind a euphoria, I suppose due to pressure on certain chakra points.

A number of them even staked out my apartment building house to try to persuade me to give them another turn on them, or to make them some. I don't have them licensed yet, so letting others use them is considered patent "disclosure."

@MermaidSuzy888 I wrote a provisional patent and even lined up a company eager to license them, but changes in patent law have seemingly made it impossible to make any money through licensing. I don't have the extra cash to hire lawyers or do anything if a company decides not to pay me, because the laws no longer require them to.

But I keep thinking that all those Americans who are overweight, or have with bad knees, who can't get out and exercise, would be able to do so.

They're so fun to use, the problem is getting people to stop and give the gallopers back to me, and they often became belligerent when I try.